Joint Statement from Advanced Space and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on the CAPSTONE 02 Collaboration

Advanced Space and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) are proud to recognize their collaboration in support of CAPSTONE 02. The partnership brings together complementary technical capabilities, a shared commitment to rigorous engineering, and a common focus on advancing reliable, cost-effective cislunar mission operations.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) will provide an advanced tri-optic imaging payload for CAPSTONE 02. Led by Advanced Space’s mission integration team, CAPSTONE 02 will demonstrate and characterize capabilities needed for future operations in the complex cislunar environment. The mission, planned to be ready to launch in 2027, will fly two identical spacecraft of approximately 400 kilograms (882 pounds) built by Terran Orbital.

LLNL’s tri-optic payload will support the mission’s rendezvous and proximity operations by imaging a companion spacecraft across ranges from tens of kilometers to hundreds of meters, providing data to support relative navigation. The payload is also designed to navigate and perform mission imaging using observations of the Moon and lunar limb, Earth, star fields, and distant solar-system objects, including planets and asteroids.

CAPSTONE 02 will employ two identical spacecraft, launched together and delivered to lunar near-rectilinear halo orbit. The mission will conduct rendezvous and proximity operations and characterize the cislunar environment using onboard sensors. Complementary NASA instruments will gather thermal and radiation-environment measurements, including space-weather data such as electron and proton flux, helping inform future long-duration human spaceflight in cislunar space.

“Advanced Space has been pleased by LLNL’s professionalism and exceptional capability when it comes to optical payloads,” said Bradley Cheetham, President & CEO of Advanced Space. “The combination of LLNL’s advanced optics heritage and our exercise navigating and operating in the cislunar environment, makes for an excellent combination of talents uniquely suited to answer NASA’s needs and requirements.”

“It is incredibly exciting for LLNL to serve as a payload provider for CAPSTONE 02,” said Cohl Hatala, LLNL’s lead for the mission. “The LLNL tri-optic payload offers a unique combination of capabilities that make it especially well-suited for this mission. By combining wide- and narrow-field-of-view telescopes with different resolutions, the system will provide telemetry to support the mission’s concept of operations.”

Together, Advanced Space and LLNL are applying complementary commercial and national-laboratory capabilities to advance cislunar navigation, imaging, and rendezvous-and-proximity operations. The partnership represents a focused, technically rigorous contribution toward reducing risk for future lunar missions and enabling a sustained human and robotic presence beyond Earth orbit.